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Tuesday, August 6, 2013

RED ALERT! The threat of rationalizing your own oppression is at an all time high

So who around the world is still believing in the magical terrorist threat? Show of hands? When will the public start calling out news agencies that refer to "terrorists" with a straight face as bullshit artists?

That's right, the U.S. has signalled it's on "high alert" over the Al-Qaeda terrorist threat which it supposedly learned about through it's NSA spying programs, you know those programs they wouldn't admit existed not 6 months ago. Now, call me crazy, but one really has to wonder where the U.S. would have claimed their intelligence came from had Snowden not released this information about NSA spying programs? Hmm. See, now that the programs are out in the open courtesy of Snowden the U.S. can freely use these illegal secret programs to justify any action anywhere, how convenient! And use it they shall..

For it is already being revealed how the terrorist (and criminal) "trials" in the U.S. are likely about to "become more transparent".

A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.

Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.

The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.

"I have never heard of anything like this at all," said Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011. Gertner and other legal experts said the program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic phone records. The NSA effort is geared toward stopping terrorists; the DEA program targets common criminals, primarily drug dealers.

"It is one thing to create special rules for national security," Gertner said. "Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up investigations."

For now media is going to carry on the pretense that there is some sort of magical separation between agencies and their databases (hello.. "fusion centers"?), whatever I think we all know this is all the same encompassing, encroaching entity.

OTTAWA - The Harper government has quietly given Canada's electronic eavesdropping agency approval to exchange information with foreign partners even when it may put someone at risk of torture.

Communications Security Establishment Canada is following a federal policy on the risks of ill-treatment when sharing information with other countries, says Ryan Foreman a spokesman for the spy service.

The policy is intended to guide security agencies when seeking or sharing information puts someone in foreign custody at serious risk of being tortured.

Human-rights advocates and opposition MPs have roundly criticized the policy, saying it effectively sanctions torture and violates Canada's international commitments.

Records released through the access-to-information law have shown that several agencies — including the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, RCMP and federal border organization — were directed to follow the policy.

However, until now there was no explicit confirmation that the policy applied to the Ottawa-based eavesdropping agency, known as CSEC.

The way the global spy-net works is everyone just spies on each other, thus bypassing any pesky laws that a sovereign body might have against the sort of behaviour described best as "Stasi 2.0" or "The United Stasi of America".

Anyway, back to the terrorists! AL QAEDA!!!!! Why do we hate terrorists? They're bad! And what do terrorists do? Umm.. suicide bomb stuff?

Since launching the surprise assault at dawn on Sunday, the mainly Islamist rebel brigades led by two al Qaeda-linked groups have captured half a dozen villages on the northern edges of the Alawite mountain range, the activists say....The command headquarters, the last section still held by Assad's troops, was overrun on Monday by ISIL rebels after a suicide bomber drove an armoured personnel carrier packed with explosives into the building.

Yes, that's right. The U.S. has issued a global terrorist red alert over the group that mainstream media now casually refers to directly as the names of the terrorist groups we're afraid of. The terrorist group that they are using to justify NSA spying is the terrorist group they are supporting. And when it comes to their show of force and capability in Syria, where is the critical analysis? It's a good thing that Al Qaeda has assured us it hasn't used chemical weapons, no need to stop supporting them in Syria! Al Qaeda would never lie to us! They want freedom, and democracy. But those Al Qaeda guys? You gotta look out for them, they never tell the truth! Lies lies it's all lies! They hate our freedom. They hate you and they hate your little dog too. This is all while we bar the evil Assad from accessing global resources to feed his people.

Of course the U.S. and the minions of global empire really do need these NSA systems of surveillance and the new criminal code we call "terrorism" to protect themselves, from you, in case you get angry.

Just last month, unilateral changes to US military laws formally granted the Pentagon extraordinary powers to intervene in a domestic "emergency" or "civil disturbance":

"Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances."

Other documents show that the "extraordinary emergencies" the Pentagon is worried about include a range of environmental and related disasters.In 2006, the US National Security Strategy warned that:

"Environmental destruction, whether caused by human behavior or cataclysmic mega-disasters such as floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, or tsunamis. Problems of this scope may overwhelm the capacity of local authorities to respond, and may even overtax national militaries, requiring a larger international response."

Two years later, the Department of Defense's (DoD) Army Modernisation Strategy described the arrival of a new "era of persistent conflict" due to competition for "depleting natural resources and overseas markets" fuelling "future resource wars over water, food and energy." The report predicted a resurgence of:

"... anti-government and radical ideologies that potentially threaten government stability."

The preparation and equipment buying spree seen at the Canadian G20, like Boston, were training for the inevitable. One day, in the not too distant future, you're going to be really, really, really mad.

I don't know what we can do about all this. We can start by not even entertaining the bullshit Hollywood script played to us everyday. Well timed crisis and the terrorist threat. A strawman focus on "climate policy" and "carbon taxes" as if paying someone for the shit makes everything ok. Of course it would make a convenient and much needed financial boost, the creation of a new bubble! Finally somewhere to sink all of the "financial instruments" we've been inventing and holding atop our house of cards before it all comes crashing down on us. If not, hey, at least we have something for the peasants to debate. Not whether or not they are getting poisoned by their society, but whether or not they should pay a tax on getting poisoned. Brilliant stuff, I tell ya.

The next time you see bullshit, just yell it out! "BULLSHIT!" If you see bullshit, say bullshit. Maybe it'll catch on and if enough people start doing it... my God; there's so much bullshit out there that even a politician atop their pedestal might finally hear the growing chorus of the peasant class.

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Richard Fantin is a self-taught software developer who has mostly throughout his career focused on financial applications and high frequency trading. He currently works for eQube gaming systems.

Nazayh Zanidean is a Project Coordinator for a mid-sized construction contractor in Calgary, Alberta. He enjoys writing as a hobby on topics that include foreign policy, international human rights, security and systemic media bias.

2 comments:

It's morbidly fascinating to observe how all this stuff is changing us, Richard. A good many acquiesce with indifference or a shrug of helplessness. Others are steadily becoming radicalized, looking for ways to topple this toxic enterprise that blankets us.